ABSTRACT
The films that have been released in the last two months are scarcely worth any attention. Since the question of quotas still has not been resolved,1 American distributors simply content themselves with rereleas ing old movies. Almost all new films are therefore French. Two years after the Liberation, the public paradoxically finds itself in a situation more or less similar to the one it experienced during the Occupation: a near cine matic monopoly. The partial elimination of the competition may have advantages-the quality of French production between 1940 and 1944 proves this-but only if it does not last too long and, even more impor tant, if the film industry has the means to take advantage of this “inter mission.” Alas, our industry doesn’t seem to have those means, since it can no longer do without either the importation of brand-new equipment or the exportation of its product, which is not financially viable when limited solely to its own national market. Your average twenty-million-franc film can no longer pay off on the French circuit. This explains why more and more films are being made under drastic money-saving conditions that are absolutely incompatible with minimum artistic standards; perhaps the few million that are thus being saved will help balance the producer’s budget. The complexity and the seriousness of the problems that are today facing the French filmmaking industry require a specific and consistent policy that the proper authorities seem unable to conceive and implement. This is why the French cinema is slowly dying in studios that get their equip ment from local flea markets, studios where some of the most qualified technicians in the world must hurry about playing the maddening role of Mr. Fix-it.
